By-election: Congress, BJP name candidates for Chincholi, Kundgol
Bengaluru, Apr 27: Congress and BJP tonight named their candidates for the May 19 by elections to Chincholi and Kundgol.
Congress has fielded Subhash Rathod from Chincholi and Kusumavathi Shivalli from Kundgol.
Rathod and Shivalli will be pitted against BJP candidates Avinash Jadhav and Chikkanagouda Patil.
Their candidature was announced by Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik in a press note Saturday night.
Subhash Rathod from Banjara community is close to Congress heavyweight Mallikarjun Kharge, whereas Shivalli is the widow of Kundgol Congress MLA C S Shivalli, whose demise about a month ago warranted the bypoll.
Meanwhile, BJP too announced the name of the two candidates from the two constituencies.
The BJP has decided to field Dr Umesh Jadhav's son Avinash Jadhav from Chincholi and Chikkanagouda Patil from Kundgol," BJP spokesperson S Prakash said.
Jadhav is the son of Congress MLA Dr Umesh Jadhav, who resigned from the assembly and joined the BJP to take on Congress heavyweight Mallikarjun Kharge in the Gulbarga Lok Sabha election recently.
His resignation warranted the bypoll in Chincholi.
The Congress decided the candidates at a meeting led by AICC general secretary and Karnataka in charge K C Venugopal, state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao and former chief minister Siddaramaiah at the state Congress headquarters this afternoon.
Congress working president Eshwar Khandre, deputy chief minister Dr G Parameshwara, and many other senior Congress functionaries were present.
The elections will be held on May 19 and the election commission has already issued a notification to the effect.
The counting will take place on May 23 along with the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections.
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19 US states sue Trump admin over 'unlawful' USD 100,000 fee on new H-1B visas
New York/Washington (PTI): Nineteen US states have sued the Trump administration over its "unlawful" decision to impose a USD 100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions, warning that the move will worsen labour shortages in key sectors such as health care, education and technology.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, along with 18 other attorneys general, on Friday filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, challenging what they termed a "massive" increase in H-1B fees without legal authority or due process.
The H-1B visa programme allows highly skilled foreign professionals to work temporarily in the US and is widely used by Indian nationals.
The coalition argued that the new fee would make the programme effectively inaccessible for government and non-profit employers that depend on H-1B workers to provide essential services in health care, education, technology, and other fields.
"H-1B visas allow talented doctors, nurses, teachers, and other workers to serve communities in need across our country.
"The administration's illegal attempt to ruin this programme will make it harder for New Yorkers to get health care, disrupt our children's education, and hurt our economy. I will keep fighting to stop this chaos and cruelty targeting immigrant communities,” James said in a statement.
In September, US President Donald Trump announced that his administration would levy a one-time USD 100,000 fee on all new H-1B applications, which the attorneys general described as a "sudden" and “massive" increase over existing charges.
The attorneys general contended that the imposition of the new fee is "unlawful" and the move violates the Administrative Procedure Act as well as the Immigration and Nationality Act, as it was imposed without congressional approval or the required rule-making process.
Joining James in the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
The coalition said the new fee on H-1B visas will severely restrict states' ability to hire new workers under the programme to address labour shortages, disrupting access to education, health care, and other critical services.
This shortage of workers would be devastating for rural and underserved communities already facing shrinking workforces, it warned.
In New York alone, more than a third of health care workers are immigrants, while public universities and hospitals rely heavily on H-1B professionals, according to the lawsuit.
In New York's 16 rural counties, there are currently four primary care physicians for every 10,000 people. New York’s hospitals already face a pervasive nursing shortage estimated to reach 40,000 nurses by 2030. A reduction in H-1B visa holders would only exacerbate this shortage, it said.
Nationwide, the American Medical Association estimates the US will face a shortage of 86,000 physicians by 2036, a shortage that H-1B workers will be critical in filling, the lawsuit said.
Across the US, at least 930 colleges and universities employ staff on H-1B visas. More than half of these institutions are public four-year universities, and more than 10 per cent are medical schools.
In New York, the State University of New York (SUNY) employs 693 employees on H-1B visas, including many who serve students in rural and suburban areas of New York state.
The coalition argues that limiting access to H-1B visas will lead to more crowded classrooms for students and disrupt critical research at leading universities.
Other critical industries in New York, such as technology, finance, and the arts, also rely on H-1B visa holders to fill essential roles. Across the state, more than 13,000 people on H-1B visas work in these sectors.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Trump's USD 100,000 H-1B visa fee creates "unnecessary" and "illegal" financial burdens on California public employers and other providers of vital services, exacerbating labour shortages in key sectors.
"The Trump administration thinks it can raise costs on a whim, but the law says otherwise. We are going to court to defend California’s residents and their access to the world-class universities, schools, and hospitals that make Californians proud to call this state home,” Bonta said.
Since the 1950s, the US has had a visa programme that allows skilled workers to temporarily live in America and work in specialised fields. The current version of the H-1B programme was created in the 1990s and allows employers to hire workers in a “speciality occupation” for a maximum of six years.
